


Captain's Favourite

by simoneallen



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-02
Updated: 2010-07-02
Packaged: 2017-11-07 23:48:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/436778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simoneallen/pseuds/simoneallen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captains really shouldn't have favourites, but Jim just can't help it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Captain's Favourite

“It’s a gift, Spock,” McCoy said. The Vulcan looked at the small, garishly wrapped item in his hands in puzzlement, turning it over and examining it as if he’d never seen such a thing before.

McCoy rolled his eyes in frustration. “Well, aren’t you going to open it?” he said in exasperation.

Spock looked at him, the slight crease between his eyebrows the only thing betraying his confusion. “What is it?” he asked.

McCoy glared at him and folded his arms across his chest. “The traditional thing to do would be to unwrap it,” he continued with exaggerated patience, “then you’d be able to see what it is.”

Spock raised an eyebrow as he continued to regard the package he was now slowly turning over in his hands. “I do not understand, Doctor,” he said, still making no move to unwrap the object, “why you should wish to give me a gift.”

McCoy sighed. “Right at this moment, Spock,” he said, “neither do I.”

Spock raised his other eyebrow to join the first as he fixed the doctor with his calm, controlled gaze. He did not understand why the Human medic was standing in his quarters waiting for him to unwrap a gift he had neither expected nor desired. As far as he was aware no one on board the ship was cognisant of the fact that today was the anniversary of his birth. McCoy, as chief medical officer, could, of course, access the personnel records of any crew member, himself included, but he was puzzled as to why he should do so in order to ascertain the date of his birthday, much less why he should then feel compelled to mark that occasion with the Human tradition of gift-giving.

“Spock, will you just open the blasted thing!” the third occupant of the room burst out and Spock turned his cool gaze onto the young captain who had taken over command of the Enterprise just six months earlier.

“Certainly, sir,” he replied, and Kirk grimaced.

“That wasn’t an order, commander,” the captain sighed, “but can you just get on with it and,” he jerked his head in the general direction of the doctor, “put him out of his misery?”

“Misery?” Spock questioned. “Why should the giving of a gift entail misery?”

“He means,” McCoy near shouted, “will you just stop analysing and open the goddamn present before I decide to take the flaming thing back again?”

Spock looked even more puzzled, or at least as puzzled as he ever looked. He made as if to hand the package back to the doctor. “If you wish to take it back I shall raise no objections,” he said, “since it is not traditional on Vulcan to celebrate the anniversary of one’s birth.”

McCoy looked as though steam might start coming from his ears at any moment. “Why you ungrateful, green-blooded…”

Kirk stepped up to the doctor and put his hand on the other man’s shoulder, chuckling fondly as McCoy broke off his retort in response, while still continuing to glare furiously at the first officer.

“Spock,” Kirk began, the amusement clear in his voice, “do Vulcans actually celebrate anything?”

Spock looked rather affronted. “Indeed not, Captain,” he began, allowing some small measure of indignation to seep into his voice. “Celebrations serve no logical purpose.”

Kirk’s grin widened. “And that goes for half-Vulcans too, I suppose?”

Spock now looked vaguely insulted. “Of course,” he replied. “I was raised in the Vulcan way and I have seen no reason to deviate from that path simply because I work with a crew that is mostly Human.”

McCoy opened his mouth, presumably to deliver another acid-tongued remark, but Kirk got in first. “So,” he said, a speculative look on his face and a teasing glint in his eyes, “as you are among a mostly Human crew, you don’t think that embracing Human customs might aid integration and promote mutual understanding between different races and cultures?”

Spock’s eyebrows shot up again as he regarded the captain then looked back at the gift in his hands. “I admit I had not considered this item from the perspective of cultural comprehension and racial integration,” he said thoughtfully.

McCoy rolled his eyes at the habitual verbosity he regularly berated the Vulcan for. “Jesus,” he muttered under his breath, “Sometimes you just wish you hadn’t bothered.”

Spock turned to look at him. “My apologies, Doctor,” he said, causing McCoy’s eyes to widen in shock. “The captain is correct that I should attempt to tolerate Human customs.” He tilted his head to one side. “I believe the phrase is... ‘you shouldn’t have’.” He looked questioningly from one Human to the other. “Although I fail to comprehend why those words are so often employed when the receiver of the gift is fully expecting it to be presented and would be displeased if it was not forthcoming.”

Kirk laughed. “That’s Humans for you!” he said happily as he clapped McCoy on the back. “Isn’t that right, Bones?”

McCoy directed a venomous look at him before turning back to Spock. “Are you going to open it or not?” he demanded impatiently.

The Vulcan nodded solemnly. “I am,” he replied and began carefully unfastening the gift-wrapping around the object in his hands.

McCoy rolled his eyes again as he watched Spock’s graceful fingers slowly working at the tape on the wrapping paper. “Hell, Spock,” he demanded, “are you planning on saving that paper for next Christmas?”

“My great aunt Maud always used to do that,” Kirk chipped in. At curious looks from his two companions, he continued. “She’d reuse the same bits of wrapping paper over and over again for years.” He smiled fondly, lost in reminiscence for a moment.

Spock looked at the gift and deliberately tore off the last piece of its brightly-coloured covering. He did not overly appreciate being compared to the captain’s frugal elderly relative. The gift was finally unveiled and Spock looked down at it in bewilderment. He held it up so it was level with his nose and peered at it.

“What is it?” he asked for the second time since the doctor and captain had arrived unexpectedly at the door to his quarters, a gift in one pair of hands, a bottle of Saurian brandy in the other.

“Oh, it’s a snow globe!” Kirk said delightedly, and McCoy shot him a look that, had it been a phaser, would have been set to kill.

“A snow globe?” Spock echoed, missing the byplay between the Humans as he looked intently into the small, clear glass dome resting on a wooden base. The item had obviously been made by someone with some artistic ability. There was a beauty in its fluid lines and in the elegantly decorated wood. Inside, a miniature version of a starship seemed to float in an inky blackness.

“Here,” Kirk said, reaching out and plucking the globe from his science officer’s hand. He held it up and gave it a shake, laughing as it filled with tiny stars that glinted against the darkness of the background, before handing it back to its new owner.

Spock looked at McCoy and raised his eyebrow. “Thank you, Doctor,” he said, even more confused than he had been before he’d unwrapped the gift. McCoy blushed bright scarlet and reached for the bottle of potent alcohol Kirk had placed on the Vulcan’s desk when they’d arrived.

Later, both slightly bleary from the Saurian brandy they’d drunk toasting Spock, who had stoically endured the impromptu birthday gathering as he sipped from a glass of water, McCoy and Kirk made their way towards sickbay and the nearest detox shots.

“You did that on purpose!” McCoy accused as soon as they were far enough from the door to Spock’s quarters to avoid being overheard by sharp Vulcan ears.

“Did what?” Kirk answered, laughing at the indignant tone.

McCoy glared at him. “You know very well what!” he said, caught between genuine exasperation and an urge to join in his friend’s laughter. “You looked up his date of birth, you picked out that globe and you let me think you’d got him a gift too, but somehow I get to be the one who looks like some soppy Human who gives ridiculous snow globes to Vulcans.” He grimaced. “I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Kirk laughed even more, wiping tears from his eyes with the sleeve of his gold uniform tunic. “Oh come on, Bones,” he spluttered, “it’s all in the name of cultural understanding and, besides, the look on your face was priceless when you realised all I’d got was brandy!”

McCoy narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, well what I’d like to know,” he said, “is exactly why you went to so much trouble to pick him out a gift in the first place if you weren’t going to take any credit for it.”

The doors to sickbay slid open at their approach and the two men walked in. McCoy turned to face his friend, folding his arms across his chest. “Well?” he said.

Kirk looked at him, his eyes wide and innocent. “He’s the only non-Human on the ship, Bones,” he said. “I wanted to make sure he feels included but I could hardly show favouritism to one crew member could I?”

McCoy raised his eyebrows. “Hmm,” he said thoughtfully, “seems to me like someone has a favourite, whether he wants to admit it or not.”


End file.
